The agreement to assemble all the Quality, Safety and Efficacy information in a common format (called CTD - Common Technical Document ) has revolutionised the regulatory review processes, led to harmonised electronic submission that, in turn, enabled implementation of good review practices.
There are two high level clinical summaries in Module 2 of the CTD: the Clinical Overview, a short document that provides a critical assessment of the clinical data; and the Clinical Summary, a longer document that focuses on data summarisation and integration.
The CTD is organised into five modules. Module 1 is region specific and Modules 2, 3, 4 and 5 are intended to be common for all regions. In July 2003, the CTD became the mandatory format for new drug applications in the EU and Japan, and the strongly recommended format of choice for NDAs submitted to FDA, United States.
The document proposes a review and revision in some parts of the Section 2.5 Clinical Overview of the Module 2 of the Common Technical Document (CTD) (Section 2.5.1 and 2.5.6) to ensure the guideline is both Harmonised and sensible in its entirety.